Hi, Mum
by Xeen Cyr
Summary: season finale - vignette


Hello

Vignette – Missing scene from the season finale s01e13 - Take Me Back To Hell

Chloe checked her phone again. At this rate, she would dawdle her entire evening away. And yet, she couldn't possibly call now, it was getting way too late. She curled up on the couch, totalling what has gone wrong lately. God, it was easy, just about everything. She felt betrayed, miserable and lonely. Worse, she felt guilty because she had toyed with the idea that putting a presumed murderer behind bars was the right thing to do.

Had she lost her touch? At this point, she was almost ready to hand over her badge. Almost! What was the point of the job if she wasn't one hundred percent certain she still possessed the ability to read people correctly? Her partnership with Lucifer had turned her into a husk of her former self. How stupid was she to trust him to the point of getting loaded enough to throw herself at him and crash his bed? Really? What was wrong with her?

She seemed to keep an endless list of weirdoes handy to choose from. Or was it the other way round and they kept choosing her… Yes, damn right, she'd turned into a weirdo magnet. She rolled her eyes and against her better judgement dialled the number.

"Hi mum, got a minute," she blurted, already regretting her impulse. On the other end of the line, she could hear heavy traffic and heated discussions in a foreign language.

"Chloe, is that you? Just a sec darling! Un Virgin Mary, s'il vous plaît," Penelope Decker's muffled voice said. "Sorry about that. How is my favourite daughter? Still juggling with fine male specimens?"

"Mum? Where are you, Montreal?" she dodged.

"Oh darling, Montreal is so last year, I'm in Paris of course!"

"Paris?" Chloe squawked. Her mother was _in Paris of course_ , while she was stuck in Los Angeles fighting her demons.

"You know me, I often say money doesn't grow on trees, and I needed some pocket change like yesterday," her bubbly mom continued, oblivious of her current issues. "So I'm back on the circuit."

Chloe pictured her chuckling carelessly. "The circuit?" This conversation was not going anywhere, probably exactly what the doctor should have ordered.

"I know you're not into it, but I imagine you've heard of those horrid fan conventions, appalling organisation, poor catering, has been cult actors who did a cameo in some unknown trashy scifi show in the 90's, suffice to say I'm practically a goddess walking among them," Penelope gloated. "It was a last minute call. Suffice to say, I'm their saviour! They flew me first class over here yesterday, booked me a nice hotel suite near the Concorde…"

At this point, Chloe put her phone on speakers and flopped back on the couch. It was going to take a while to talk her mother off her favourite subject, -herself. Come to think of it, Penelope and Lucifer had a lot in common.

"… and the weather is simply divine. And seriously, Paris, what's not to love?"

"Yeah, sounds good. Mum…"

"What's wrong? Is it Dan? I could have told you he was a lost cause, but, hey, what do I know, I'm just a child."

"Mum, it was a…"

"You're just like your father, God rest his soul, you always see the good in people. May I remind you that more often than not, he was wrong."

"No, it's not Dan," Chloe said. His ex breaking up with her by text, it was a story for another day. She exhaled sharply. "It's…"

"Lucifer!" she exclaimed. "Merci beaucoup," her mother said playfully.

"Sorry?"

"Just the waiter with my drink. That nice British gentleman," she cooed. "He ran away, am I right? What did you do? Can't you see Lucifer is the real deal Chloe? Easy on the eyes, educated, wealthy, madly in love with you…"

"No, he's not!" Chloe protested weakly.

"Please don't. I know love when I see it. Please tell me he's still in the picture and that you bagged him already!" she scolded.

Chloe sighed. Her mother, the hopeless romantic with a bank radar. "Yeah, I bagged him alright. I arrested him, well, tried to." Silence. "Mum?"

"Tried to?"

"He managed to get away…" Right before my eyes and a dozen witnesses.

"Oh, good… But why arrest him to begin with?" Penelope raised her voice. It reminded her of numerous rows they had had when she was in her teens. Gone was the cheery banter.

"I had to. He kind of killed someone," she said bluntly.

"Lucifer? No way," Penelope chuckled. "I give you he can be brutally honest, but a killer, you're kidding! Why not a torturer when you're at it? Ridiculous! I don't buy it… Are you absolutely sure? Cops are known to make mistakes."

"Nope, not this time. We found the body neatly tucked in his club." Neatly being the operative word. "He did it." She breathed in loudly. Saying it out loud did change a thing. She sounded like a schizophrenic lunatic.

"Regardless," Penelope mused, "you don't think he did it, do you?"

"I… I don't know. If Lucifer wanted this low-life dead, I don't think he'll be dumb enough to dangle his body in front of me, in his club no less."

"Good thinking."

"If you really want to know, I think he's been framed or something."

"Okay, now you're getting somewhere. What are you going to do about it? Can you bend a judge's ear? Or maybe a DA mixed up in a compromising situation?"

"Mum, I'm not that kind of cop!"

Penny chuckled. "What has it got to do with anything? Right now, you can't exonerate your friend, and you don't want him in jail. You probably don't want to deal with it, but it's going to be open season on his fine ass. And you're saying there was no way to put the body on ice or something?"

"It's not a procedural TV show, it's real life, mum."

"Well, you're the expert," she said matter-of-factly. Chloe practically heard her shrug. "I wouldn't have arrested Lucifer to begin with. How can I help?"

"You just did. There's nobody I can talk to about this except for Trixie. And I don't want her to know he's in trouble."

"She really likes him…"

"Yes, she does."

"Children are great judges of characters, trust her and, Chloe? Trust your friend. Gotta go, darling. Talk to you soon." With that, she hung up unceremoniously.

Frustrated, Chloe glared at her phone. Her mother didn't have to convince her Lucifer was innocent. She never doubted him. For some insane reason, she trusted him. And because he saved your life, she thought. She needed her mother to say she wasn't going crazy, though it seemed like the best explanation right now. Except a bunch of cops was as mental as she was. There was no way to reason out how Lucifer had gotten away when they had him pinned at gun point.

Some illusion? Hypnosis? An elaborate trick? Trixie insisted he was a magician…

She got to her feet and felt the pockets of the leather jacket she'd left on the back of a chair on her way in. What she didn't get was _this_. She studied the black feather she'd found at Lux after Lucifer disappearing act. Maybe she could ask the squints, -or maybe not. To drop it at the lab didn't seem like a good plan.

First, she wanted to confront Mazikeen, and shake some truth out of her.


End file.
